It’s the development that had two neighbouring councils at loggerheads.
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Now, the community can attend the opening of the Display Home Village at Lendlease’s Calderwood Valley this weekend.
The Calderwood land release – which will eventually house 4800 homes between Dapto and Albion Park – falls partially in both the Wollongong and Shellharbour council areas, with about two-thirds in Shellharbour.
In 2010, both councils unsuccessfully fought the Lendlease development in court. Wollongong council also launched Land and Environment Court action last August, objecting to Shellharbour's consent for a 279-lot subdivision at Calderwood. The northern council complained Shellharbour had failed to consider the effect the development would have on West Dapto roads within Wollongong’s borders, and sought to force the developer to contribute towards the costs of upgrading Yallah and Marshall Mount roads.
Last October, the court ordered that the development consent given by Shellharbour was invalid and ordered the council to pay Wollongong's costs.
However, this decision was due to an administrative error, and not the consideration of Wollongong's argument about road costs.
“As the court made their orders on the delegation issue, the issue of monetary contributions was not argued,” a Wollongong council spokesperson said.
“However, Wollongong City Council remain firmly of the view that it is entitled to appropriate contributions from any future development at Calderwood. Council and Lendlease are continuing their discussions since the court set the consent aside.”
Shellharbour Mayor Marianne Saliba said that initially, “we went to court because this was not in our future planning”. “However, once the court decision was made, we made it very clear to Lendlease that we were going to work with them to get the best outcomes for our community, and I believe that’s what we’ve done,” she said. “We changed our attitude and we started looking at how we can make things work, rather than make things not work.”
General manager of Lendlease’s Communities business in NSW/ACT, Arthur Ilias said in two years they had sold about 800 lots at Calderwood. The display village opening is on April 29 and 30, 11am to 3pm daily. Homebuyers can inspect up to 37 homes by 20 builders.